Doug Finke: No signs of compromise in Springfield

Friday

Sep 28, 2007 at 12:01 AMSep 28, 2007 at 12:27 PM

*House Speaker MICHAEL MADIGAN, D-Chicago, sent a letter to lawmakers last week saying that Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH has contempt for the state constitution, is trying to imprison lawmakers in Springfield, is traversing into a “dark realm” and is engaging in tyrannical behavior.

Doug Finke

*House Speaker MICHAEL MADIGAN, D-Chicago, sent a letter to lawmakers last week saying that Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH has contempt for the state constitution, is trying to imprison lawmakers in Springfield, is traversing into a “dark realm” and is engaging in tyrannical behavior.

Thus, the stage is set for everyone to compromise on a capital bill, mass transit funding and other issues still outstanding as the veto session gets underway this week. We’re looking forward to it.

*Madigan promised that the House will hold hearings on a capital bill and the gambling expansion bill needed to pay for it. Don’t get your hopes up that the House is close to passing either one.

It’s become a familiar pattern with Madigan. He’ll hold hearings on bills that he’s opposed to in order to give the appearance that he’s being open and reasonable. Immediately after the hearing, a committee, or the House as a whole, will summarily kill the bill. It’s as impartial and as carefully orchestrated as the trial of a political dissident in some Third World country.

The betting line is that, hearings or not, the gambling bill that came out of the Senate -- which includes three new casinos -- won’t pass as is in the House. Some sort of gambling/capital compromise may be worked out, but it could well be smaller than what passed in the Senate. If that’s the case, a bunch of projects that people are now crowing about may get delayed or disappear altogether. As the hype over a capital plan continues, just remember that none of it is a done deal.

*King Milorad I decreed last week that all uninsured women over a certain age are now eligible for free breast and cervical cancer screenings and treatment courtesy of the state. The state already had the program on the books, but there were income restrictions. KMI eliminated those restrictions last week. The estimated cost is $50 million.

It’s not that Blagojevich’s goal is a bad one. It’s that the way he is doing this could end up raising a lot of false hope among women. Critics immediately pointed out that the legislature has not approved money to pay for the expanded program. The governor can cut money from a budget, and he can shift a limited amount of money around, but he can’t add to a spending item without the General Assembly’s approval.

What this could mean is that, if a lot more women start taking advantage of the program, it will run out of money early next year. Then what happens, especially if lawmakers balk at putting more money into an expanded program that they didn’t approve in the first place?

Money isn’t the only issue. Some lawmakers think Blagojevich exceeded his legal authority by expanding the program. Others think he needs federal approval to do what he did. And who knows if those newly eligible women can find a doctor willing to take them as patients, given the state’s track record of late payments?

Like other Blagojevich programs, this sounded great last week. Now we’ll have to see if it actually amounts to anything.

*Blagojevich went around the state announcing the expanded screening and treatment program. One of his stops was in Belleville.

Based on an account in the Belleville News-Democrat, it appears Blagojevich couldn’t resist his usual cheap shots during his appearance in the city. He said women of Illinois should thank House Democrats, including Rep. TOM HOLBROOK of Belleville, for providing funding for the program.

“I vetoed their pork barrel projects to pay for this,” Blagojevich was quoted as saying.

There’s just one small problem. As Holbrook noted, the governor did not veto his projects.

You see, Holbrook is a member of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, an obscure panel that could block some of the health care expansions Blagojevich wants to unilaterally impose. When Blagojevich was boldly hacking away at all of that evil pork barrel spending, he somehow missed the projects put in by the 12 members of JCAR. Obviously, this was just a coincidence and not, as some cynical people implied, an attempt to buy JCAR’s support for his health care plans.